Into a celestial path of peace

The holiday season is the wrong time of the year for agnostic doubt, atheistic despair or smug cynicism. In fact, this evening, somewhere over the desert, the peace of twilight will be enhanced by panoramic savannas of rose-pink light that will reach out and spread across the deep darkening vault of heaven.

Into this celestial path of peace, right on into the quotidian passage and midnight flowering of the silent sky, the circumference of the earth turns at over 1,000 mph.

No one is left behind as we are all transported to the grand entrance of heaven's harbor and the star-spangled threshold of the stars. Along with this physical reality, there is a more dramatic spiritual reality. It is found in the song of beauty and the divine promise that your heart and "My Heart Will Go On And On."

A smaller percentage of us are under arms and engaged in violence and retaliatory conflict than ever before in the history of the world.

More of us are alive than have ever died. We are part of a population tsunami of almost 7 billion "souls on board" and growing.

The eternal evolution of continuous creation and the supremacy of intelligent divine design is manifest, whether mandated or not, in every pause, both in the classroom and in the courtroom of silence.

The most obtuse, the most obdurate and the most contumacious of us will finally believe if we see and touch the indisputable benefits to be derived from friendship, especially that heroic friendship extended to us in the open wounds of forgiveness and reconciliation.

Then, we can welcome and encourage the creative compassion and gift of peace before we come face to face and embrace the Great Mystery Spirit Who is with all that "is" can mean and is beyond our wildest dreams!

George E. Bedingfield

Arlington Heights